International Law

International law continued to evolve in the areas of human rights, international security, and trade. In addition, the pressures of globalization and the consequences of the expanding web of international agreements shaped state interactions throughout 2000. (SeeEconomic Affairs: Sidebar.)

International Courts, War Crimes, and Human Rights

Caribbean states voted to establish a Caribbean Court of Justice, which would join three existing permanent international courts: the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The ICJ heard cases on India’s 1999 downing of a Pakistani aircraft and a request from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that Uganda withdraw from its territory. The court determined that it had no jurisdiction in the India-Pakistan dispute. In Congo’s petition the ICJ bowed to Resolution 1304 of the United Nations Security Council, which demanded that Uganda and others retreat from the DRC.

The ECHR heard several cases against Turkey concerning its human rights record. The court in 1999 had ruled against Great Britain by declaring a ban on gays in the military a violation of the right to privacy.

States continued to make amends for World War II-era crimes. Germany established the $4.8 billion Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future Foundation to address all Nazi-era claims against German companies, particularly those that had employed slave labour. Similarly, a Japanese company agreed to establish a fund for descendants of Chinese who had been forced into slave labour during the Japanese occupation. A $1,250,000,000 fund was set up in Switzerland to reimburse people who had lost assets in Swiss banks, had been slave labourers for Swiss companies, or had been refused asylum in Switzerland. The Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal granted $341 million to the people of Enewetak atoll, who were displaced from 1947 to 1980 and returned to find vast stretches of their land contaminated. The payment topped a $150 million fund the U.S. provided to settle claims arising from the nuclear-testing program conducted on the islands from 1948 through 1958.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia produced its assessment of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. It determined that NATO did not cause “excessive” environmental damage and had selected noncivilian targets as much as “reasonably possible.” The tribunal continued to await the arrest of indicted war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic, former leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of Yugoslavia, respectively. Dragan Nikolic, commander of the Susica prison camp in Bosnia, was apprehended in April.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) tried six cases and heard two appeals. The appeal of former prime minister Jean Kambanda’s 1998 sentence to life in prison was dismissed in October. Georges Ruggiu, a former journalist, pleaded guilty to having incited genocide and received a 12-year sentence.

In October the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1315, calling for a tribunal to punish Foday Sankoh and his followers for atrocities committed during their continuing rebel campaign in Sierra Leone. A tribunal was also being established for Cambodia. To avoid continued ad hoc international tribunal formation, states had voted in 1998 to establish a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC). By Dec. 31, 2000, 139 states had signed and 27 states had ratified the ICC treaty, which required 60 ratifications before it came into force. On the last day of the year, U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton unexpectedly added the U.S. as a treaty signatory. Although no international tribunal was expected, in mid-December the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor indicted several Indonesians for war crimes.

A number of former government officials accused of human rights violations in their home countries faced prosecution elsewhere. In 1998 former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte was arrested in Britain on a Spanish warrant. In March 2000 the British ruled that his health made him unfit to stand trial, and he was flown back to Chile. Following a Chilean Supreme Court ruling stripping Pinochet of the prosecutorial immunity he had enjoyed in Chile since 1978, a Chilean court indicted Pinochet on kidnapping charges and placed him under house arrest. The arrest was overturned on the grounds that Pinochet had not been questioned. The court-ordered questioning and mental health evaluation were to begin on Jan. 7, 2001, but the former dictator was refusing to cooperate.

In February the exiled dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, was indicted and arrested in Senegal and charged with crimes against humanity. In July the charges were dismissed on the grounds that Senegal was not the proper venue. The dismissal was under appeal, and Chadians brought additional charges against Habré. Spain sought the extradition of Argentine Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, who was accused of torture in Argentina during the military’s 1976–83 rule. Cavallo was arrested in Mexico in August.

U.S. Court Cases Relating to International Law

American awareness of international law was heightened during the case of Elián González, a Cuban boy rescued from the sea after the boat he was on sank, killing his mother, who had been trying to escape to the United States. Relatives in the U.S. had asked that he be granted asylum, but the court ruled that a six-year-old could not understand the request. Given the boy’s close relationship with his father in Cuba and no imminent danger to him if he returned, the court decreed that the U.S. had to abide by the father’s wishes and return him to Cuba.

In Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling that a Massachusetts law forbidding trade with Myanmar (Burma) was unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause because it interfered with a similar national law.

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